an expert, though, can gain insight from Avnery's unique
eyewitness/participant status.
Often the press misrepresents and the world misunderstands the situation in Palestine and Israel. Avnery not only paints a vivid picture of the grim occupation, he tells an enraging story of power and duplicity in the negotiation process toward peace. It is indeed a vicious circle as each Palestinian concession becomes the base point for the next round of talks, and the percentage of historic Palestine left for a state dwindles steadily, both on the ground and around the negotiating table.
Though there are those on both sides of the issue who fight the status quo, Israel, powerful in its own right, receives virtually unqualified support from the United States-the world's current evil empire at the height of its power and madness. Nonetheless, voices like Avnery's are rippling through the world. Access to the Internet has raised awareness of this issue in particular, but of world issues in general, throughout a great deal of the world's population. It is in the US empire where the effects of this dissemination of knowledge about the hitherto little-known (because vastly misrepresented) issue of Palestine and Israel are having the greatest effect.
Following on polls that are finding a growing sympathy for
Palestinians, Israel is scrambling to regain its spot as the victim deserving of special treatment. Every trick, from a "rebranding campaign" touting the wonders of being an Ethiopian Israeli soccer player (when Ethiopian Jews face racism in Israel) to the nasty, vicious attacks by groups like Campus Watch on intellectuals speaking a truth about the current nature of the Israeli state, is being vigorously pursued in the attempt to keep Palestinians isolated and powerless. Nonetheless, the situation is changing. World public opinion is shifting. The question is: Will it shift enough, quickly enough, to throw the vicious circle off its course?
The circle must break; the world is reaching a crisis point that cannot entirely be avoided, and the situation in Israel and Palestine is a central issue. How it will play out remains to be seen. I do not agree with all Avnery's positions, most notably his position with regard to the question of one or two states. I tend toward one state because the two peoples are intricately and inextricably entwined on the same land, because the right of return is a moral and legal right, and because I am repelled by the notion of any state built on exclusivity, including the one in which I live.
Concomitantly, I also think that Israelis-many of whom know no other home-cannot and should not be displaced; Palestinian Arabs have no inherent right to exclusivity either. In several of his writings,